


Of Overpriced Coffee and Cheap Motels

by maybegracie



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, harry wants an epic romance, louis just wants harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-21
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-09 03:19:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/769365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybegracie/pseuds/maybegracie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry wanted an epic romance. So he went searching for it, and found it in a boy with blue eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Overpriced Coffee and Cheap Motels

Harry Styles wanted an epic romance.

He wanted to move to New York and get a shitty apartment with squeaky floors and tiny rooms. He wanted to need buckets for water dripping through the ceiling, and he wanted a manual on repairing sinks for every time the goddamned thing had a leak. He wanted to walk down the street to the Laundromat because he couldn’t be bothered to buy a washer. He wanted long nights reading and shit coffee and an exposed brick wall. He wanted to cry on the first escape and drag his old guitar to every coffee shop in the city to play.

Then, he wanted to meet a boy. In a bookshop or at a coffee shop or a crappy bar. He wanted to show him his dumb apartment and get nagged at for never washing the dishes. He wanted cozy, over-sized sweaters and long nights discussing novels and the meaning of life and lazy mornings eating leftover pizza and watching cartoons. He wanted to lay on the old, squeaky couch and watch Disney films and eat ice cream and dance naked to Katy Perry’s new single.

He wanted it all.

And so he went searching for it.

-

The first potential NYC beaus were mediocre at best. They didn’t know all the words to a Hannah Montana song, they were snotty, they didn’t even read dumb kids books. So they were left out in the cold while Harry continued his quest.

The answer came on a Monday.

Harry was sitting in a corner booth at the diner when he saw him.

He had big blue eyes what crinkled when he smiled, and shaggy brown hair that kept falling into his eyes when he looked down.

Harry was a mess by the time the god reached him.

“You alright?” the boy laughed, waving a hand in Harry’s face.

Harry gulped and nodded, trying to get his breath back.

“I’m Louis,” the beautiful boy, Louis, said.

“Harry Styles."

-

On their first date, Louis took Harry to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. They danced and laughed and Louis knew all the songs. When Harry invited Louis back up to his apartment, he laughed and said, “Not on the first date Styles.” And he winked and flounced back down the stairs and walked away because he couldn’t drive and Harry swooned because he was an idiot, but he might be starting to begin falling in love.

On their second date Louis took Harry to the park.

He picked him up from the motel he was staying at, which smelled of mildew instead of cookies and soap.

“You live here?” Louis asked, surveyed his small room while Harry rummaged about, searching for a sock.

“Temporarily,” he replied, lying on his stomach to look under the bed. Ah. There it was.

“Yeah, but you live in this dump,” Louis sniffed, crinkling his nose in distaste.

“Only until I find my own place,” Harry explained, pulling on the sock and his sneaker. “It’ll be perfect, Louis, just like on TV. With creaky floorboards and everything.”Louis laughed and threw an arm over Harry’s shoulder, kidding his cheek. “OK.”

-

It was two weeks later that Harry both found an apartment and made it official with Louis. Like, Facebook official.

“Just, you have to see it, Lou, its perfect,” Harry said, grinning and the shorter boy who was presently carrying a box full of DVDs for a TV that Harry didn’t own yet.

“Alright!” Louis grinned. “Jesus! You get so worked up about this shit.”

“You love me.”

“I know.”

But it wasn’t awkward, and Harry’s heart didn’t stop, because it was LouisandHarry. They didn’t do the awkward first kiss or the butterflies and throwing up from the nerves on the first date. All that was too boring, and time-consuming. Louis and Harry weren’t in love, or boyfriends, or experimenting. They just were.

“Here it is,” Harry bellowed, pushing open the door to his new apartment.

“This place is shit,” Louis noted, setting the box down in a dusty corner.

“I know! Its phenomenal. Now help me clean.”

So they dusted and cleaned and slapped each other in the rear end with dish-towels and sang old Justin Timberlake songs until it was dark.

“We didn’t unpack,” Louis said, sounding morose.

“Who cares?” Harry replied, kissing Louis’ temple.

So they dragged out blankets and pillows and camped out on the floor.

“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” Louis giggled when Harry pulled out a flashlight.

“What’s the point in growing up if you have to follow rules?” Harry responded.

They they snuggled and slept until two in the afternoon because Harry didn’t have an alarm clock.

-

Louis worked at the diner where they met. He also worked at a bar. He also was an undiscovered actor and musician.

The first time Harry heard Louis perform was eight days after their 2nd date. It was at the diner. He saw at the piano in the corner and started plucking at keys. Then he started playing. Harry had never understood music without lyrics, but at that moment, all Harry could think about were whispers in the dark and Louis’ laugh and Louis’ snoring.

At the bar he worked at, “The Hide-Away Bar”, Louis had a friend, Niall. Niall was boisterous and loud and had a boyfriend named Zayn who Niall “only liked for his body.”

When Louis told them that he was in love with Harry, Niall just muttered, “well, its about fucking time,” and Zayn sucked on a cigarette.

Harry had a friend named Liam who lived down the hall. Liam wasn’t Like Harry or Niall or Zayn or Louis. He was smart, and never drank, and had carpeting and a stocked fridge. He ‘only lived in this hole to make it through med school.’ He wanted to be a doctor.

When Niall, Zayn, and Liam met, Liam scoffed at Niall’s vulgar jokes and turned up his nose at Zayn’s cigarettes. Then Louis spilled his drink down Harry’s shirt, and Liam relaxed and Zayn stomped out the fag.

A few days later, Niall came sobbing to Louis that he had seen Zayn with Liam and how he couldn’t even breathe. Zayn tried to talk to him, but Niall stayed holed up in Harry and Louis’ apartment crying.

Liam called when Niall fell asleep, saying it was a mistake and an accident. Zayn called saying the same thing. Both times Harry hung up because that is what you do when your friend is crying in his sleep.

The next morning when Niall woke up, Louis made him tea and eggs and Harry snuggled with him on the squeaky couch.

Zayn knocked on the door at around 10:07, but he left after Louis screamed about Niall being special and Zayn being a pathetic excuse for a man and giving people space and Niall smiled for the first time that day when Harry called Zayn a bitch and Liam a slut.

That night they took Niall to a club and got him wasted. He ended up going home with a guy named Josh, who didn’t seem to have ulterior motives.

When the two boys returned to The Apartment and Harry lay on the couch with his guitar and they sang and played for hours until it was too late to think properly and they collapsed into bed. (They got a bed after a while, a shabby thing that was two inches off the ground.)

-

On Harry’s 21st birthday, Louis made him a chocolate cake with icing that spelled out Happy Birthday Idiot in punk curly-cue letters.

The cake was ugly and tasted like shit, and they ate it on the fire escape and laughed and Harry figured he didn’t need to cry on fire escapes if he could do this instead.

Then Louis leaned forward to kiss him and it wasn’t seductive, but Louis tasted like chocolate and strawberries and boy and Harry loved it.

-

Liam and Zayn ended up going out, much to Harry and Louis’ chagrin. But Niall ultimately forgave them, though he didn’t speak with Zayn anymore.

Niall and the Josh kid went together for about a month before Josh dumped Niall, who, again, spent the night at The Apartment, where Louis and he watched Donald O’Connor and Marilyn Monroe fall in love and Ethel Merman sing about theater while Harry looked around for jobs.

Eventually Harry got a job at a record shop, mostly due to the owner, Caroline’s, obvious crush on him.

Louis went to the shop at least once a week, fiddling with the vinyl section or running his dainty digits over jukeboxes while Harry watched on, giggling whenever Louis found an album that piqued his interest Every once in a while, Harry would bring Louis home an old Rolling Stones album, or The Best Of Patsy Cline. These were the soundtracks to their life, kissing to Tom Jones or dancing to Grease.

-

The first time they fought, they had been together for six months. It was awful, Louis went to Doncaster to stay with his family while Harry ‘calmed down and got his shit together’. In all actuality, Harry moped and sobbing into Niall’s shirt instead.

It was all over a customer at the record shop named Nick. While Louis was walking along the aisles lackadaisically, a handsome boy with a ridiculous hairstyle had approached Harry, shamelessly flirting and asking Harry for his number. Eventually, Harry gave it to him, rolling his eyes at Nick’s victory dance and smiling.

Louis didn’t particularly mind exchanging numbers as friends, but Harry had failed to inform Nick that the devilishly handsome chap staring holes in the back of his head was Harry’s boyfriend.

When Louis came home, Harry ran into his arms, sobbing about never flirting again and "if you ever leave again I’ll fucking murder you." Louis was laughed and cried, and showed Harry pictures of his sisters.

-

It was exactly one year, three months, and eighteen days after the fight that Harry got down on one knee and proposed. Louis had accepted, bickering about feeling like a girl and crying.

Five months later, Harry was waiting in the back of the building, wringing his hands when the march began. He and his mother pushed through the door, and Harry’s eyes darted over to where Louis and his mom were walking down the other aisle. Harry grinned, and Louis smiled back, cheeks pink with anticipation.

When Harry began his vows, Louis started crying.

“Louis Tomlinson, when we met, I was a kid. I was stupid and cocky and then I fell hopelessly, tragically in love with you. I am in love with everything about you. From your hair and your gorgeous blue eyes, to the face you make when you play the piano, to the way you dance like no one’s watching. I love the things I hate about you. I love how you jump on the bed to wake me up. I love that you tickle my sides to cheer me up. I love how you make fun of me for my taste in movies, but you sobbed in the Notebook, too. I can’t promise to always adore you, since your an asshole most of the time. I can’t promise to always listen, because I don’t give a shit about science or theater, or any of that dumb ass stuff. But I can promise to always be a hand to hold. I can promise to make fun of your fashion sense. I will always make you breakfast in bed on your birthday and force you to to eat it all. I will always love you, and be faithful, and follow you wherever you go. So sorry Lou, your stuck with me.”

Louis grinned and shrugged.

“I’m not great with words,” at this the crowd laughed and Louis glared. “But all I can say is, Haz, you’ve shown me what love it, and what life means. And there aren’t enough words in the world to describe what you mean to me,” Louis reached up to wipe a tear from Harry’s eye. “So all I an think of to say is I love you. I love you I love you I love you. And I will love you until the day I die, and then I’ll love you in heaven, or hell, because I’m a stubborn little shit.”

And then they grinned and Harry’s grandma scoffed and they kissed.

And that night, they traded in the bad coffee and squeaky floorboards for a nice hotel, and Harry kissed Louis’ skin while he breathed I Love Yous, and thought about how much better this was than what he pictured at eighteen.


End file.
